


The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

by Kariki



Series: Climbing Class Prompts [4]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Almost dying is a great way to realise your feelings for your bff, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Endangerment, Child Murder, Chris to the Rescue, Climbing Class, Eventual Chris/Josh, Gen, M/M, Made up Backstory, Makkapitew is not nice even when he was human, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-graphic Murder, Prompt Fic, Psychic Dream, The Mountain is Sentient, Wendigos, mentioned beheading, mentioned gore, non-graphic cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kariki/pseuds/Kariki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris wakes up from a horrible, drunken nightmare where he and all his friends die, becoming food for a cannibalistic monster.  He wakes up to find that the events of the dream are starting to happen around him.  Can he stop the nightmare from coming true and save everyone or are their deaths inevitable?  (new summary because I hated the old one)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life is Certain, Death More So

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from illpickadecentnamelater on Tumblr: Takes place in the prologue: As Beth runs after Hannah, Chris wakes up in the lodge from the worst nightmare he's ever had (the events of the game). Still reeling, he runs after his best friend's sisters, and uses his new knowledge of Wendigos to get the twins back to safety and keep everyone safe for the night. BAMF!Chris, or at least Protective!Let-me-take-the-hits-Josh-I-will-save-your-sisters-and-you!Chris.
> 
> It kind of got away from me and might not fit EXACTLY but here we are!

_The monster — the Wendigo — collided into him, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending him crashing into the snow. The shotgun tumbled out of his hand and out of reach._

_**He was going to die… he was going to die… he was going to die…** _

_The words repeated over and over in his head, blocking out every other thought._

_**He was going to die…** _

_He felt the claws in his hair, yanking his head back, exposing his neck._

_**He was going to die… Josh was probably already dead… the Stranger that was going to save them is definitely dead… they were going to die up here on this mountain. They were all going to die…** _

_The coppery taste of blood gushed into his mouth as the Wendigo stabbed its fingers through his neck. The world tilted and spun… he could see Ashley, looking down at him through the glass door… looking down at his head._

_**I’m dead…** _

 

Chris jolted awake with a half garbled scream that caught in his throat. The stool he had been slumped in wobbled dangerously under him for a split second before spilling him onto the floor with a loud thud. 

What the _fuck_ was that?!

Chris stumbled to his feet, gripping the stool and counter for balance. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, adrenaline and panic fighting back the worst of the alcohol still in his bloodstream.

He had never been one for bad dreams. Besides the occasional ‘waking up naked in school’ dream for the most part, his dreams were nice, if odd. It had always been Josh having the fucked up dreams, not him… but this dream had been horrible. The worst he could ever remember having.

Why would he dream of something like that?

And it was all so fucking _vivid_! He could see the spray of blood as the Stranger’s head was sliced off his body. He could remember the icy hot shock of pain as those same claws ripped through his own neck… and he remembered seeing more death. He saw Ashley opening a trapdoor… Sam being lifted up by the neck… The lodge exploding into flame, taking Mike down with it…

And Josh… Josh being dragged away by a monster that… that used to be Hannah. 

Chris felt his throat tighten and he stumbled around the island, barely making it to the sink in time as his stomach rejected what little contents it had. The beer and bile burned his throat and nose but it only took a few gagging heaves to get it all out.

“Fuck,” Chris moaned, leaning down to rest his head on the cold marble counters. “What a fucked up dream…”

Chris turned on the faucet, cupped his hands under the cold water, and brought it up to his lips. He almost choked on the liquid in surprise when he heard the sound of running feet and the sound of someone calling Hannah’s name. Chris wiped the dripping water from his face and looked toward the door to that lead out to the main floor. 

That was… it was just a coincidence, that’s all. Just because the dream had started like this… It was unnerving, yeah, but that’s all. 

“I’m losing my mind,” Chris groaned, turning to lean back against the counter. Beer bottles, cans, and red solo cups littered the kitchen, scattered among the paper plates and empty chip bags that seemed to occupy every flat surface. Josh was still passed out on the center island, his head resting on his arm and still wearing Chris’s too big sweater that he had all but stole from him after a particularly violent snowball fight out in the yard. Chris had won it because had pinned the slighter boy down and shoved snow down his shirt.

Everything was just like it was before he passed out. It was just as it should be… but it was just like the dream as well. 

“It was just a dream,” Chris said, out loud this time. His voice echoed slightly in the large open area and Chris nodded. Just a dream… That was all…

Chris’s gaze fell onto the sheet of paper on the island, on the opposite side from Josh.

That… that shouldn’t be there. He didn’t remember seeing it there before he passed out… but that didn’t mean anything. Who pays attention to random scraps of paper on tables? It was nothing except… except it was there in the dream.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Christopher,” Chris muttered to himself, pushing off of the counter and walking over to the island and to the paper resting there. “It’s just someone’s shopping list… or one of Hannah’s crappy poems.”

Chris picked up the paper, turned it over, and what little remaining alcohol in his system evaporated.

_Hannah, you look so damn hot in that shirt…_

Chris dropped the paper like it was on fire. It drifted down to the floor, deceptively harmless.

“Oh… oh, shit.”

“You _jerks_!” Chris jumped, startled as Beth’s yell echoed through the Lodge from the front door. He looked out the window and saw a flash of bright pink as Beth ran past… running after Hannah.

Hannah who had ran out into the woods, into a snow storm, because their friends had played a horrible prank on her… and now Beth was going in after her and — Chris knew what was going to happen to them — they were going to fall off of a cliff. Beth was going to die and Hannah…

Hannah was not.

And in a year, Hannah will be the one to kill the rest of them.

Chris looked around the kitchen again. Everything was exactly the same as it was in the dream with one exception: Him. Instead of being passed out along with Josh, he was awake. He was awake and his best friend’s sisters had just run off… 

Josh muttered something in his sleep, too soft for Chris to make out but Chris felt his stomach twist all the same. If the twins died, or if they just thought they did, it would completely destroy Josh. Chris didn’t need a dream to tell him that. Beth and Hannah meant the world to Josh…

Chris felt his resolve harden. 

He couldn’t just stay here and do nothing. Even if the dream wasn’t real, even if there were no monsters haunting the mountain, he couldn’t just leave them out there. It was dark, there was a snow storm, and that was dangerous enough. That was all the reason he needed to go after them.

But just in case the dream was more than a dream…

Chris moved quickly. He hurried over to Josh and grabbed the other boy’s favorite zippo lighter from the table by his hand.

“I’ll get them back, Josh,” He promised, touching Josh’s shoulder as though to reassure him. Josh muttered in his sleep but didn’t wake. He gave Josh’s shoulder a squeeze before letting go.

Chris turned back and ran into the main part of the kitchen. A can of cooking spray sat by the stove, waiting for use. He had remembered it from that morning, frying eggs for himself and Josh while everyone else still slept in. It was a new can, bought the day before when they did a supply run… it seemed so absurdly normal now.

He grabbed the can, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it on something other than eggs, and ran out to the main floor of the Lodge. He grabbed his coat off the rack and ran out to where the rest of them were standing around, looking out into the dark forest for any sign of the twins.

“Get back inside!” Chris barked, shoving an arm into his coat and yanking it up onto his shoulder. 

“What?” Sam looked at him in surprise. “Chris, what are you…”

“Go back inside!” Chris said again, zipping up the coat as he turned to face them. They were all staring at him and he wanted to wilt under their shocked and, some of them anyway, hurt gazes. 

What could he tell them? 

_‘Hey, there’s a bunch of monsters on this mountain and they’re going to kill Hannah and Beth. I know because I saw in a dream I had while I was blacked out from drinking too much.’_

“Look, I’ve been up here more than the rest of you,” Chris told them, thinking quickly. “I can go find the twins. You guys… you guys can go try and wake up Josh. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid until we get back?”

“You’re going to go out there by yourself?” Emily scoffed, crossing her arms. “Sorry, Chris, but you’re not exactly Bear Grylls.”

“We can split up and some of us can come with you,” Sam suggested. “We’ll find them faster that way…”

“No!” Sam jumped and Chris felt a pang of guilt at yelling at her. “No,” he said again, more calmly. “Look, I don’t think the twins would want to see any of you after… after that prank. And Josh will need someone to calm him down if he wakes up and the twins are gone.” Sam looked ready to argue. “Sam, you really think Josh is going to listen to anyone else? After he finds out?”

Sam looked doubtful but after a quick glance at everyone else’s (guilty) faces, she nodded. 

“Just… I’ll bring them back,” Chris told them, walking toward the path that would lead out into the woods. “Just… you go inside. Stay inside. And lock the doors.” 

He didn’t wait for them to question his instructions though he could just hear them asking: “How’d he know about the prank?” and “Why did he have cooking spray?”.

It wasn’t hard to find Beth’s tracks in the snow, even with more of the white fluff falling. It was obvious that the youngest Washington sibling wasn’t messing around. Chris was already panting, trying to follow the trail the girl had left behind.

“Beth!” he called out, hesitating only a moment as he came to a set of stairs built into the mountain. There was no time to climb down them, the twins were already so far ahead of him. He dropped down from the landing and continued following the path left by the younger girl’s boots. He tried not to think of how familiar the scenery was. That just meant he was on the right track… “Hannah!”

In the distance, he saw a burst of flames and his heart jolted.

That… that was the flamethrower guy. The Stranger… Was he too late? It was still so far away…

“Fuck!” Chris hissed, jogging to a stop to catch his breath. He wouldn’t make it in time, not if he kept following the twins. What had the twins done? He tried to recall… Beth had found Hannah in his dream and they were a lot closer to the flames than he was now… but then they had run some more. Away from the flames…

Where… where had they…?

A covered bridge, there was a covered bridge and then… then a cliff.

He needed to get to the cliff.

How the fuck did he get to the cliff?!

“Think,” Chris closed his eyes, leaning against a tree until his forehead touched the cold bark. “Think, think, think…” The twins had just ran through the woods, that wasn’t helpful. All these fucking trees looked the same! And which bridge did they cross? If he remembered right, there were at least three of them! 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he was so fucked. 

Why had he run out here? Did he really think he could have done anything? Could have saved them?

He just… he needed to think. He didn’t have time to worry about anything else! 

“A bridge near a cliff… bridge near a cliff,” Chris tried to focus, tried to remember where all the bridges were. “There was the one leading up from the cable car station… and… fuck, where are the others?”

There was a loud thump behind him.

Chris’s eyes shot open and he twisted around quickly and almost tripped over his own feet. He brought the can of cooking spray and the lighter up but paused. His heart still pounding in his chest, he stared at the elk that had jumped into the clearing behind him.

The large animal huffed in obvious disdain before it jumped back into the thick brush of the forest.

“Fucking elk, man…” Chris sighed, lowering his make-shift flamethrower in relief. He thought for sure it was one of those monsters, jumping down behind him and ready to rip his head off. At least the elk would only gore you to death…

Chris stilled as a memory drifted up and replayed in his mind.

Matt, kneeling down in a covered bridge and pulling out Beth’s frozen and broken phone out from the between two broken floorboards… it happened in the dream, it happened a year from now.

They were heading to the fire tower and Matt had went into the bridge and found the phone, just minutes before a herd of elk had surrounded both him and Emily… trapping them on a cliff… trapping them on the cliff.

They had been on the trail to the fire tower which meant the bridge he wanted was near there.

Chris moved out in the clearing and quickly scanned the upper branches of the trees, searching for… There! The slow pulsing of the red light at the top of the tower, peeking out from between two trees. If he went in that direct, he would get to the trail that the twins would cross.

“Okay… okay, this will do.” Chris nodded to himself and headed out in the direction of the fire tower. 

The snow was thicker off the path, the branches lower and the ground uneven but Chris stumbled his way through the forest. The pulsing light was steadily becoming clearer.

“No!” Chris stumbled at the scream. That was Beth! “No! Shit, no!”

“Beth!” He yelled, sprinting in the direction he hoped the girl’s voice had come from. “Hannah!”

He burst onto a path and saw the bridge in front of him. Through the wooden tunnel, he could just make out the twins backing away from… from a Wendigo.

“Shit!” He flicked open the zippo lighter and got it ready as he dashed forward, through the bridge and toward the monster threatening the girls. “Get away from them, you fuck!”

As he grew closer, he saw this one didn’t look like the ones he had seen in his dream. Its skin was cracked and rotting in places with old bite marks and scars littered the rough flesh. Its eyes were completely fogged over with white and they all but bulged out of the thing’s skull but Chris could tell it was looking straight at him. Its needle sharp teeth glinted in the dim light. Black feathers hung from bands around the monster’s upper arms, like it was part of a costume or outfit from one of those bad western movies Josh liked. 

How old was this thing? It had be ancient, far older than any of the miners he had seen in the dream. Was this why it was so much worst than the other wendigos? It was older?

The wendigo shrieked, breaking Chris from his thoughts. The wendigo turned to face him and, with a growling hiss, leapt toward him.

“Fuck!” Chris lifted up the can and flicked the lighter to life, sending a spray of flame towards it. The wendigo twisted away from the flames, dodging the worst of them and landed a few yards away from Chris. It hissed and slowly backed away from the fire and Chris edged his way around it, putting himself between it and the twins.

“Oh, god, Chris,” he heard one of the girls behind him, he couldn’t tell which it was.

“Just stay away from the cliff!” Chris shouted over his shoulder, not wanting to take his eyes off the monster in front of them.

The ancient wendigo gave a shriek and turned, leaping back into the forest with a few bounds.

Chris lowered his hands, panting as he looked into the dark forest, searching for any signs of the wendigo’s return but there was nothing.

“I… I did it,” Chris breathed. He wasn’t sure if he was more shocked or relieved. 

The dream had been real and that was utterly terrifying…

The dream had been real and he had saved his best friend’s sisters. He had saved Josh from going off the deep end. He had saved them all from being torn to pieces. He had done it…

Chris turned and gave the twins a lopsided smile.

“Hey,” he sighed, looking the girls over. Hannah was wearing Beth’s jacket and both of them looked scared out of their minds but… but they were alive. “You guys okay?”

“Oh, my god,” Hannah gave out a sob, “Chris! What… what was that thing!?”

“That… was a…” Chris looked back toward the forest then looked back at the twins. “I’ll explain it later. Are you two okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Beth nodded, the tension slowly draining out of her now that the danger was gone. “I-I’m fine. Hannah fell…”

“I’m fine,” Hannah broke in, smiling slightly. “I tripped but I’m not hurt.”

“Good,” Chris nodded, more to himself than to the twins. He tucked the lighter into the pocket of his jeans and set the can down on the ground before shrugging off his jacket. “Beth, here.”

“No, I’m fine, Chris…” Beth shook her head.

“Take it,” Chris insisted, holding the jacket out to her. “I’m wearing enough layers to keep an army warm. Take it.”

“Fine,” Beth scoffed but it was more fond than annoyed. “But let’s hurry back to the Lodge…”

The shriek took them all by surprise. The wendigo jumped down from one of the taller trees and landed a few yards behind Chris. Hannah screamed and jumped back in fright, right onto the edge of the cliff. She grabbed onto Beth’s hand, screaming as she began to topple backwards. Beth screamed her sister’s name and reached for Chris’s arm but her hand caught his jacket instead.

Hannah fell, dragging Beth back with her… and Beth dragged Chris forward.

“Fuck!” Chris grabbed onto the jacket, pulling it and Beth forward, trying to stop the youngest girl’s fall but it wasn’t enough. Beth disappeared over the cliff with a scream and her fall dragged Chris forward. He fell, face first, into the snow with a grunt as all the air in his lungs were forced out. He held onto the jacket, even as it began to pull him toward the cliff.


	2. Prepare for Death, and Follow me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a rescue, an escape, and the Twins learn the truth about what's on the mountain.

“Fuck!” Chris gritted his teeth, the tough fabric of his jacket digging into his palms as he tried to hold on. The cold wetness of the snow seeped through his shirt and jeans as he was dragged toward the edge of the cliff, pulling forward by the weight of the twins. “Fuck!”

“Chris!” He heard Beth scream, “Chris, don’t let go!”

“No, shit!” Chris hissed under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut as he dug his toes into the snow, trying to stop himself from being dragged off the cliff with the girls. It wasn’t working.

He could hear snow crunching behind him and the rattling hiss of the wendigo as it approached.

This… this wasn’t how it was suppose to go down! He was suppose to save the twins, suppose to save them all! Instead… instead he had made it worse! Not only were Hannah and Beth going to die but he was going down with them! How much worse would the next year be because of this? Would all three of them die or get trapped in the mines? Will they fall off the cliff together? Or will the wendigo drag them back up so it can rip their heads off and feast on their corpses? 

Will anyone find them?

This was going to fucking kill Josh. It had been so bad in the dream, when it was just the twins who died but if Josh lost all three of them? Chris wasn’t blind, he knew Josh needed them. He needed them so fucking much, even he didn’t like to admit it. Chris had been there from the beginning, when Josh had had his first panic attack in biology all those years ago and Beth had joined in a few years later, after she had found his meds and looked up what they were for… then Hannah… she had only found out last October when Josh was in the hospital but she had been so determined to make up for lost time.

“I’m sorry, Josh,” Chris breathed, his arms meeting air as they were dragged off the cliff. “I’m so fucking sorry…”

“Hey!” Chris’s eyes shot open at the voice. He had only heard it a few times, in the dream, but there was no mistaking it now. The Stranger.

The wendigo behind him shrieked and Chris heard the rush of air and felt the sudden heat as the flamethrower was unleashed.

“Chris?!” He heard one of the girls scream. He turned his head and wished he hadn’t. He was face to face with the cliff now and he could see the girls dangling over a large drop, his jacket the only thing stopping them from plummeting to their deaths. 

“J-Just hold on!” He called down to them, tightening his hold on the jacket further. “H-Hey!” he tried to look back over his shoulder. “W-We could use some help here!”

“I’m trying, kid!” The Stranger yelled back and Chris could see the outline of the wendigo, its shape black against the flames. “Just hold on… NO!”

The wendigo gave a shriek and leapt away from the flames, launching itself off the cliff.

“Fuck!” Chris’s eyes followed the skinny shape as it fell past the twins and landed on the ground so far below them. It looked up at them and gave another scream before escaping back into the forest below.

“Damn it!” The Stranger cursed, all but throwing the nozzle of the flamethrower down as he knelt down by Chris and grabbed onto the jacket to start pulling. Chris almost sobbed in relief as the strain on his arms lessened. He had been so focused on holding on, he hadn’t noticed it felt like his arms were on fire. “Damn it to hell! I almost had him!”

“It almost had us,” Chris grunted, reaching down for Beth as soon as she was close enough. He grabbed her arm but she still held onto the jacket with one hand, her other hand still grasping Hannah’s. “So, thanks for that.”

“Hmph,” the Stranger grunted but seemed mollified as he reached a hand down for Hannah, grabbing her slim wrist and began pulling her up.

“Oh, god,” Beth gasped as Chris pulled her onto solid ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Stranger pull Hannah up over the edge. “Oh, my god, Chris…”

“It’s okay now,” Chris told her, placing his hands on her shoulders so she would look at him. There were tears in her eyes… Beth hardly ever cried. Chris swallowed the lump in his throat at the sight as he pulled the shaking girl into his arms. Without bothering to look, he held his hand out to Hannah and was instantly met with the middle Washington sibling wrapping her arms round him as well. “It’s alright now. It’s gone, it’s alright now…”

“For now,” the Stranger grunted, climbing to his feet and tucking the nozzle of the flamethrower back into its holster. “But it’ll be back and I wager it’ll not be too happy.”

“W-What was that?” Beth asked, slowly pulling away from Chris. She wiped at her eyes roughly, like she was angry that she was crying, and looked up at the Stranger. “T-That thing? What was it?”

“It was…” Chris glanced up at the Stranger before looking back to Beth, “It was a wendigo.”

“A… A wendigo?” It was Hannah that spoke. Unlike her sister, she didn’t bother to hide the tears on her cheeks. “What’s that…?”

“It’s a…” Chris trailed off, unsure of what to say. Somehow he thought they wouldn’t be too comforted to know that those things used to be human… or that they were that way because they were cannibals. “It’s a monster.”

The Stranger scoffed behind them.

“That it is,” the man said, reaching down to grab the can of cooking spray Chris had dropped and gave it an amused smirk. He tossed the can over to Chris who barely managed to catch it before it landed back in the snow. “And it’ll be back. I suggest you lot be somewhere that’s not here when it does.”

“Right…” Chris nodded and stood up, brushing the snow off his jeans. Chris held out a hand to the twins to help them up out of the snow. “We’ll get back to the cabin and… and wait it out till dawn. We can take the cable car and never ever come back here.”

“Probably a good idea,” the Stranger nodded with a smirk.

“What if that thing - that wendigo thing - comes back?” Hannah asked, tugging Beth’s jacket tighter around her slim form. “Before the sun comes up, I mean…”

“I’ll make sure you get to the cabin,” the Stranger said before turning his gaze over to Chris. “Besides, I want to have a talk with your boy here.”

“A talk?” Chris asked, surprised, “with me?”

“Aye,” the Stranger nodded. “I’ve got some questions for you, boy. Now let’s get going. The longer we stay out here, the more likely we’ll draw unwanted attention.”

“Right…” Chris looked back at twins then toward the Stranger who was already walking down the path. “Right… Beth, you take my jacket.” He unfurled the jacket, wincing as he saw the torn seams along the sleeves and side and held it open for her to slip into. It would have to be trashed when they left but for now it would do.

“We don’t got all night,” the Stranger called back.

“Come on,” Chris dug the lighter out of his pocket, just in case and started down the path after the older man.

“Wait, Chris,” Beth grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Are you… are you sure we can trust him?”

“He did save our lives, Beth,” Hannah spoke up, fidgeting with the sleeves of Beth’s jacket.

“Beth, it’s fine,” Chris assured her, reaching out to rest his hands on her shoulders. “I know everything is… is fucked up right now but we can trust him. I know we can.”

“But Chris…”

“I will leave you out here,” the Stranger called back, continuing down the path without them. “And, trust me, you don’t want to be left out here alone.”

“Come on,” Chris gave the twins a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, “We need to get back. Check on the others. Check on Josh.”

“He was passed out on the counter,” Beth said, reluctantly following the Stranger’s footprints in the snow. “I tried to wake him up when… when Hannah ran out but…”

“Yeah, uh,” Chris rubbed the back of his neck, “We were kinda hitting it pretty heavy earlier…”

“Josh more so?” Hannah asked, as she stayed close to Chris’s side, “I mean… _you_ woke up…”

 _This_ time he woke up…

“Yeah, I guess…”

The Stranger was waiting at the tree line, the nozzle to his flamethrower in his hands. At his sides sat two wolves, one black and one white. 

“Wolfie…” Chris muttered under his breath, remembering the wolf Mike had befriended. 

“Oh!” Hannah stopped short, staring at the two animals.

“They won’t hurt ya,” the Stranger said, misinterpreting why Hannah had stopped.

“That’s not the problem,” Beth said, grabbing hold of Hannah’s hand. “Leave the wolves alone, Han…”

“Can I pet them?”

“Hannah! Monster in woods that want to eat us!” Chris reminded her, shaking his head despite the small smile that tugged at his lips.

“Hmph, they’re guardians, not pets,” the Stranger grunted, looking down at the wolves at his side. He gave a whistle and nodded his head toward the two girls. The wolves stood and trotted over to them. “They start watching something and start growling, you two stop moving. You don’t move a damn inch, you got that?” He waited for their nods before looking to Chris. “Wolves are on point, girlies. Don’t get too far ahead, just a few yards at most. You, Specs, back here with me.”

Chris looked at the twins in concern. Beth met his worried gaze by Hannah was offering her hand to the white wolf, a look of adoration already blooming on her face.

“You going to be alright?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, just don’t fall behind.” Beth gave Hannah’s hand a squeeze before pulling her down the path. The wolves instantly fell into position, the white wolf - Wolfie - at Hannah’s side while the black one trotted by Beth’s.

“Shouldn’t one of us be up with them?” Chris asked, falling back to walk beside the Stranger. “I mean, we’re the ones with the flamethrowers…”

“ _I’m_ the one with a flamethrower,” the Stranger smirked, “you’re the one with a can of spray and a lighter.”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.” Chris stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and wrapped his hand around said lighter. Josh was absurdly fond of the zippo. It was engraved silver and a birthday gift from his dad. He took it everywhere with him. Chris even suspected he started smoking just so he could have a reason to show it off. Chris ran his thumb over the smooth metal surface. Who’d have thought such a little thing could be so vital now? “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Worked well enough, yeah.” To Chris’s surprise, the Stranger nodded. “But what I’m curious about is this: How’d you know you would need it?”

“I-I… what?” Chris felt a cold chill go through him. He glanced ahead at the twins, just several feet ahead of them. Even if the dream had been real, had warned him what was lurking on the mountain, to actually say it out loud? It wasn’t believable. Hell, Chris was having trouble buying it and it was him it happened to! “I just… I needed a weapon…”

“A homemade flamethrower?” the Stranger quirked an eyebrow, obviously not believing him. “I’ve been on this mountain a long time, Specs. And I’ve seen the daddy of those two girls,” He nodded at the twins who were now looking back at them. “Man has a gun fetish if I’ve ever seen one. Hunting might not be allowed on the mountain but I know he has a gun or three stashed away somewhere in that mansion of his.”

“…They were locked away?” Chris tried.

“You asking or telling?” The older man scoffed.

Chris looked between the Stranger’s amused smirk to the questioning glances of the twins ahead of them.

“Look, does it matter?” Chris snapped, pulling his hands out of his pockets and crossing his arms. “A weapon is a weapon!”

“And the weapon you chose was exactly what you needed,” the Stranger filled in. “All I want to know is how you knew you needed it.”

“Look, I… I don’t want to talk about it.” Chris shook his head. “You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

“You had a vision.”

“What?!” Chris stopped short, staring at the Stranger, only to be met with a smug smile. Up ahead, the girls had stopped as well, turning back to face them.

“Chris, what is it?” Beth asked, taking a step back toward him.

“It’s… it’s nothing…”

“Specs here was given a vision,” the Stranger announced, shifting the straps to the tank on his back. 

“A vision?” Hannah asked.

“A dream,” Chris clarified, shrugging a shoulder as nonchalantly as he could. “I had a fucked up dream. That’s all…”

“It was a vision,” the Stranger insisted, shaking his head. “Call it what it is. It probably saved your life.” The Stranger paused and nodded to the two girls. “And theirs, I’d wager.”

“Chris?” Hannah was looking at him.

“It was just a dream!” Chris unfolded his arms to throw his hands up in the air. “And, yeah, I took the spray and lighter because of what I saw in that dream but that doesn’t mean anything…” Three pairs of eyes stared at him. Chris could swear the wolves were staring at him too. “Fuck, it means something, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” the Stranger nodded and started walking again. “It means the mountain likes you.”

“The mountain likes me?” Chris repeated, his voice dry, as he stared after the Stranger who was now ushering the girls along. “The giant mound of rocks likes me.”

“Or your friends,” the Stranger shrugged a shoulder. He looked at the girls. “I always thought you Washingtons were ridiculously lucky, being on this mountain as much as you are.”

“So the mound of rocks likes us?” Beth repeated Chris’s words. “It has a fucked up way of showing it…”

“You’re alive, aren’t you?” the Stranger smirked. “I would remember that, if I were you.”

“So, wait,” Chris shook his head and jogged up the path until he was at the Stranger’s side once more. “You’re saying that… that this _mountain_ gave me one of the worst nightmares I ever had… a nightmare where…” Chris trailed off and looked up ahead at the twins. 

“Where what?” Beth looked back at him, though he could tell she already suspected.

“What… what happened in your dream, Chris?” Hannah was looking back at him now, her hand resting on the white wolf’s flank. They had stopped in the middle of the path again.

“It’s nothing…” Chris trailed off. He met Hannah and Beth’s gaze and realized there was no point in lying anymore. They weren’t stupid and this… this wasn’t protecting them. “I saw you die.” The words made him feel sick. “I saw you fall off that cliff… after being chased by that wendigo.”

“Oh, god,” Hannah closed her eyes and gave Beth’s hand a hard squeeze, a squeeze that was readily returned.

“That’s… that’s not all.” Chris wanted to shrivel up and hide. He didn’t want to have to repeat the dream, didn’t want to relive it in anyway. “I saw what happened a year later. We… we all came back. Because Josh asked us to. Said it would give him closure. He… he took it hard. But when we got up here, the… the Wendigo started hunting us.”

It wasn’t the entire truth but they didn’t need to know it all. They didn’t need to know about Josh going off his meds or about that fucked up prank he came up with. They didn’t need to know Hannah didn’t die or that… or that she was the one that started hunting them. None of that mattered now. It wasn’t going to happen.

“It… it killed everyone. Tore us apart… ripped my head off.” He glanced over at the Stranger. “It even got you… and the miners got your wolves.”

Chris noticed the Stranger didn’t look amused anymore.

“… Miners?” Hannah asked, her fingers scrunching up in Wolfie’s fur, petting him as though he could understand that Chris had just informed him of his death.

“Yeah, uh,” Chris glanced at the Stranger, “there’s kind of more than one of them.”

Beth stopped and turned to face Chris.

“How many more?”

Chris met Beth’s hard stare, seeing the barely contained fright behind her eyes. He could only shrug.

“Got about five of them locked up,” the Stranger spoke up. “In all, there’s about twelve of the bastards. Not including the Makkapitew.”

“There’s… there’s _thirteen_ of them?” Hannah asked, breathlessly.

“Yep.” The Stranger nodded. “I suspect they like to be in the places they remember from when they were human. Lot of them like to stay up there on that peak, around the old sanatorium… when they’re not down in the mines, that is.”

“When… when they were human?” Beth repeated, stepping closer to Hannah who was paling rapidly. “Those things were human?”

“‘Were’ being the keyword,” the Stranger nodded. “What did your vision tell you about them, Specs?”

“My name is Chris,” Chris said, miffed at the nickname. “And… and, yeah, you managed to give us a brief lesson on them. Before it tore your head off.” Chris wasn’t above being a little petty. He looked back toward the twins. “Apparently if… if someone resorts to cannibalism on the mountain, they get cursed. They turn into one of those things.”

“So those… those things are cannibals?” Hannah asked and Chris could see she was definitely going a bit green in the face. “Does… does that mean that…that thing was going to…”

“Eat you?” the Stranger filled in. “Yes.”

“Oh… oh, god…” Hannah’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Hannah!” Beth grabbed her sister by the shoulders and quickly steered her toward the edge of the path. Chris winced at the sounds of Hannah vomiting. The wolves whimpered and looked between the girls and the Stranger, as though confused about what to do.

“You said the mountain gave me that dream. That… ‘vision’ or whatever is was,” Chris said, turning to look at the Stranger and away from the twins, giving them some privacy while Beth tried to calm Hannah down. “Why would it do that? Why would this hunk of rock care?”

“Beats me,” the Stranger shrugged, his one good eye scanning their surroundings. It was making Chris nervous.

“Great, that’s a great help,” Chris huffed and tightened his hold onto the spray can and lighter. Just in case.

“All I can tell you is, if the Mountain likes you or if it’s feeling charitable, it’ll try and warn you about the horrors it hides,” the Stranger looked over at the huddle forms of the twins. “Personally? I think it liked having kids up here.”

“…What?”

“Your friends. The Washingtons,” the Stranger said the name like it was a joke, “came up here every year, sometimes twice a year, and they stayed for weeks at a time. It was a pain in the ass, let me tell you, having to patrol around the woods and mines _and_ have to babysit you rich fucks.”

Beth sent a glare over her shoulder but the Stranger ignored it.

“I was sure you lot would run into the curse eventually. It was inevitable… and yet, there you all were. Perfectly safe and oblivious. It was the same with the old hotel that lodge of yours is built on. Right smack in the middle of a war zone but in perfect oblivious harmony. People still disappeared when they wondered off where they didn’t belong but, for the most part, it was safe.”

“Is… is it built on sacred ground or something?” Chris asked, frowning. Though that didn’t make any sense… he had seen the wendigos get into the Lodge, seen them in the old basement of the hotel…

“You watch too many movies, Specs,” the Stranger scoffed.

“But the mountain being sentient is far more believable?” Chris returned the scoff. “Or that it has motherly instincts and grew to love the sound of children laughing?”

“In the past century, no child has died on this mountain,” the Stranger stated calmly. “And with that old hotel, trust me there were plenty of opportunities for such tragedies. Children wander off, children explore, children go where they shouldn’t. Girlies,” the Stranger focused back on the twins. Hannah was sitting back on her heels, panting, but she wasn’t as pale as before. “You ever notice anything odd up here when you were growing up?”

“No,” Beth said firmly, shaking her head.

“Josh… Josh used to have nightmares…” Hannah said at the time Beth spoke.

“Hannah…” Beth started but stopped at the tired look Hannah gave her. “Fine…”

“Josh used to have nightmares… when we were little,” Hannah started again, looking over at Chris and the Stranger. “He… He said he thought he saw monsters looking in through his bedroom window. H-He said he’d get so scared he couldn’t move… not until morning.” Hannah gave Chris a small, teary smile. “You’ve seen his room, Chris. He always has the blinds and curtains closed now. He used to tell us about it but I thought he was just trying to scare us…”

“I… I used to hear things,” Beth spoke up, her hands clenched into fists as she stared down into the snow. “Under the house… scratching and crashes. I even heard some kind o-of scream down there before. Mom and Dad just thought Josh was messing with me or all of us were watching too many of Dad’s movies. I haven’t heard anything like that in years now though.”

“That’s because I blocked off the tunnels leading into the old hotel some ten years ago,” the Stranger sniffed. “If your family wasn’t already rich, I’d say you’d make a killing playing the lottery. You alright to walk now, Girly?”

“Y-yeah,” Hannah nodded though Chris could see her hands were still shaking as she stood up. “I… I want to hurry up and leave. I want to go home…”

“Yeah,” Chris nodded, offering her a weak smile. “Maybe… maybe we can take the cable car down, instead of waiting until dawn?”

“It won’t just follow us?” Beth asked, glancing at the Stranger. “It didn’t seem too put off by heights the way it swan dived off that cliff. What’s to stop it from climbing the cables down after us?”

“The wendigo can’t leave this mountain,” the Stranger shook his head. “It’s part of their curse. As it stands, it’s only the Makkapitew out hunting tonight. When the Makk is out, the rest of them stay clear.” The Stranger smirked. “They don’t quite get along, you see. The miners? They got a pack mentality about them but the Makk? The Makkapitew hunts alone and it’s not too keen to share.”

Chris remembered Hannah as a wendigo, remembered how, in the dream, she and two other wendigos had had a stand off that ended with Hannah ripping one’s head off. 

“I saw them fighting… in the dream, I mean.” Chris spoke up, “I guess that explains why.”

“So we only have to worry about the one?” Beth asked, looking between the two of them. “That’s not bad, right? I mean, we can get by one of them…”

“This is the Makkapitew,” the Stranger shook his head. “Don’t underestimate it. It is the oldest wendigo up here, and the strongest. It didn’t get that way by being stupid. Let’s just get you lot up to that lodge and we’ll work out what to do from there, yeah? We’ve been lolly-gagging too long as it is.”

“You heard him, ladies,” Chris forced a smile, “no more lolly-gagging.”

Hannah gave Chris a small smile, thankful that he was trying to lighten the mood, but Beth’s face remained wary and hard. 

It was snowing harder now, piling up on the path, making it harder to walk through. Chris was starting to wish he had had another outdoor jacket as the snow melted on the plaid shirt he was wearing, making him wet _and_ cold.

“Why does it have a name?” Beth asked suddenly, her voice soft but easily heard over the crunch of snow under their feet. “The Makkapitew. Why does it have a name while the others don’t?”

“Don’t know their names,” the Stranger shrugged. “The original twelve were killed decades back, by my grandfather and my father, but the wendigo spirits found others to possess. The Makk though? That’s the real deal. The original monster.”

“How old is it?” Chris asked, remembering the black feathered armband the monster still wore. 

“Hundred years or so, give or take few decades.” The Stranger didn’t seem all that bothered by that time frame. Chris couldn’t say the same.

“But… where did it _come_ from?” Beth persisted. “You keep saying there’s a curse but… but how?”

“You really don’t understand the concept of stealth, do you?” the Stranger grunted. He didn’t say anything for a moment and the teenagers fell into an uneasy silence, ears straining for any odd sound that might supernatural in origin. 

“I suppose we got the time,” the Stranger said, breaking the silence once more. “Been a while since anyone outside of the tribe and my family heard it. About time it was shared, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Hannah is one of those girls who get irrationally attached to certain animals. In this case, it's wolves. She gets to pet real live wolves, you guys. Live the dream, Hannah.


	3. The One with Big Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris and the twins learn the story of the Makkapitew... and find out they're not safe yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long, I had to completely rewrite the beginning of this. I had tried to have the Stranger actually tell it but it just wasn't fitting the way I wanted. Good news is, once I restarted, it was easy! I ended up getting this done in a day! So sorry if there's any mistakes, I'll fix any I find.

_The mountain has always been a sacred place for the Cree. They could feel the Spirit of the Mountain and it told them how to keep it happy._

_As long as they did not kill on its peaks, they were welcome._

_The Cree honored its wishes and would even go so far as to give it offerings of food, flowers, and song as they passed by on their yearly travels, thanking it for its kindness. For years, the Cree and the Spirit lived in harmony, both respecting the other._

_Eventually, one of the bands of Cree Indians that usually passed by decided to settle down at the base of the mountain. Everything they needed was provided for here; there was clean water, plenty of animal life in the forests surrounding the mountain, and plenty of materials for them to make homes from. Their nomadic existence, while traditional, paled in comparison to the comfort of the mountain._

_A small village was built and it thrived._

_As more of the Cree passed through the village on their journeys, they saw the village not only survive in the harsh environment but grow bigger and stronger. They were tempted into staying, in sharing in the comfort of the mountain._

_The chief of this small village was a great hunter, known as Makkapitew. It was said Makkapitew had sworn himself as the Mountain’s protector and thus carried the Blessing of the Mountain with him. It was this blessing that allowed him and his band of twelve hunters to keep the village fed. Every day they would go out hunting and bring back game to feed the village. There was never a want for food while they hunted._

_It was their downfall._

_They became so comfortable and so confident in the surety of their survival, they did not see the need to store much food for the winter. They did not bother to dry much of the plentiful meat, only enough to last a few weeks, at most, and most of their fruits and vegetables were treated the same._

_The first storm of winter came upon them, hard and fast but at first, they did not worry. They had food from the last hunt, they had their emergency stores. They thought themselves safe._

_That first storm passed only to be followed by another and then another. The storms continued for weeks, making travel impossible. No one came in or out of the village and their precious little stores were running out quickly._

_At every opportunity, when the storms would lessen, Makkapitew would take his hunters out to try and bring back food but there was nothing to be had. The animals had abandoned the forest. Their tracks either disappeared in the snow or, worse, led up to the mountain where the hunters could not touch them._

_Every hunting trip, they came back with little to no food. People were starting to starve._

_Makkapitew, desperate to save his people, made offerings to the mountain, giving it what few things of value they could offer - beads, song, even some of their precious stored food - but every hunting trip ended the same._

_People started to die._

_Angry at the Spirit of the Mountain for abandoning them, Makkapitew decided to forsake his promise to the Spirit of the Mountain and led a hunting party onto the sacred slopes._

_The game was plentiful and they hunted without care of what they killed - elk, deer, moose, bears, wolves -if it crossed their paths, it drew their arrows._

_The Mountain howled in rage at the bloodshed and, as the group of hunters tried to descend the mountain with their prizes, a storm blew in. The snows came so thick and fast, they could not see through it. They had no choice but to seek shelter and leave their kills out in the storm to be retrieved and cleaned later._

_The storm ended and, to their dismay, their kills had been frozen solid. The meat was frozen so completely that even their sharpest knife could not penetrate the dead flesh. They tried to pick the carcases up to carry them back down to the village in one piece but the bodies were frozen to the ground._

_The Mountain had made it clear. They might have broken their oath but they would not get what they had come for._

_The hunters left the mountain in defeat, freezing and half-dead, but deep in Makkapitew’s heart, an ice cold hatred had formed._

_When they returned to the village, the others were shocked at the actions of their hunters. They had not known what their leader had planned nor where the hunters had been going but they felt the shift in the mountain, felt the Spirit’s anger._

_They had no offerings left for the Spirit of the Mountain and they knew their village was doomed. Some decided to leave right then but others wanted to wait it out until spring, when the winter storms stopped. Either way, most felt their death was assured._

_Finally, a few of the village people, not Makkapitew or his hunters, decided they must find a way to save their families without angering the mountain further. They hoped there would be better hunting further out, days or weeks worth of travel away. It was their only chance, they feared._

_This small group of hunters took what they could carry and promised that if they returned, it would be with food and supplies for the village._

_Makkapitew and his hunters did not go with them. The ice in their hearts were growing with every passing day, with every growl of their stomach, with every glimpse of movement up on the mountain until one day, Makkapitew looked out over his dying village and saw only death and felt only a need for revenge._

_He gathered his hunters and told them what he wanted, how he planned to cow the Spirit of the Mountain into submission._

_That night, they armed themselves with knives and torches and set fire to the village. As the villagers ran away from the flame, Makkapitew and his men would slaughter every man and woman, sparing only the young. Then they gathered all the surviving children, tying them so they could not run. They carried them up onto the mountain._

_They created a large bonfire and called out to the Spirit of the Mountain:_

_‘You will not allow us the meat of animals in order to survive your cursed snows!’ Makkapitew cried out, ‘Then we will survive on the flesh of man!’_

_The hunters slit the throat of every child and threw them onto the fire to cook._

_The Spirit of the Mountain howled in shock and grief with every innocent death. The Mountain rumbled, the snow fell, the ice crashed but nothing the Mountain did could dissuade the maddened Makkapitew and his hunters._

_As the hunters took the first bite of human flesh, the Spirit of the Mountain struck them all with a vile curse._

_Their bodies twisted and lengthened, their teeth were pushed out and replaced with jagged fangs, the bones of their fingers pushed out their fingernails and became claws… and their hunger grew monstrous, never to be sated and leaving them forever hungry._

_Makkapitew was punished more harshly than the rest. All he knew was hunger and starvation that not even the bonds of friendship and family could penetrate through the greed and lust for blood. Animal, man, even other wendigos, they were all just prey in Makkapitew’s mind._

_All traces of humanity left him and he ceased to be Makkapitew, the man and became the Makkapitew, the One with Big Teeth._

_The Spirit of the Mountain trapped the wendigos on its peaks, never allowing them to leave so that their evil could not spread beyond the Mountain’s control._

_It was weeks before the hunting party returned to their decimated village. They found their families slaughtered, their children missing, their homes destroyed. They followed what evidence they could find up the mountain and found the remains of the fire and what little was left of their children._

_They screamed their grief to the mountain and the mountain returned it._

_It gave them dreams of what had occurred and what needed to be done. The mountain was no longer safe for people. They needed to go and tell the rest of the world of the Curse of the Mountain, that no man who ventured onto it would ever be safe._

_All of them left with the exception of one, my distant ancestor._

_For decades afterward, the Cree avoided the mountain, knowing the curse that awaited them if they dared to venture up its slopes. For decades, the wendigo stayed on the mountain, fighting each other and suffering from hunger that could never be sated._

_Eventually, the wendigos retreated into the mountain, beaten down by the lack of human flesh to consume, and they slept their hunger away._

_Then the prospectors came, with their pickaxes and explosives and the Mountain howled in pain as the creatures sleeping within were awoken once more._

* * *

The Stranger finished his story, his voice lingering in the snowy air. Around them, Chris could hear the snapping of branches as the snow weighed them down until they broke and the creak of trees as the wind blew them. He had stopped jumping at them a few minutes ago but his eyes always flickered to the wolves and the Stranger, just in case but the man had continued his story, unconcerned though his hands never left the trigger of his flamethrower.

“Is that why there’s thirteen of them?” Chris asked, breaking the silence that was starting to descend upon them. “Because there were originally thirteen?”

“On any other mountain, the spirit of the wendigo would not be limited to just a measly thirteen,” the Stranger nodded. “But on this mountain? Yeah, there’s only thirteen.”

“That’s why you were locking them up?” Chris continued, furrowing his brow. “I-In my dream, you were locking them up instead of killing them. You said you have some locked up now… It’s so they can’t come back, right? So you know where they are?”

“Guess those glasses aren’t for nothing, eh, Specs?” the Stranger grunted a laugh. “But yeah, that’s the reason for it. My grandfather, way back when, had actually managed to kill the twelve hunters. He didn’t know at the time how futile it was. He had it down to just the Makkapitew when that damned cave-in in the mines happened. Years of work and danger and blood undone within weeks by a few cowardly miners, too desperate to live to do the right thing.”

“The right thing?” Beth repeated, her voice hollow. “What? They should have starved?”

“Or killed themselves,” the Stranger nodded. “There is nothing more vile and damning than killing and eating another human. The Cree knew that. If faced with the choice between cannibalism and death, one should always chose death. It’s things like that that lead to this shit happening. People took worthless to do what needs to be done.”

“I-I could never… do that to someone… eat them…” Hannah started to say but trailed off. “I’d rather die…”

Chris looked at Hannah and was relieved that he hadn’t revealed all of what happened in the dream. He could only imagine the pain she must have been in to do what she did in that now distant dream… and she held out for so long as well.

“The wendigo spirit tries to trick you, doesn’t it?” Chris spoke up, glancing at the Stranger once more. “I-If it’s looking for someone to possess? It tries to talk you into it? Makes you… makes you hungry for it?”

“It does,” the Stranger nodded, “That’s usually where the ‘kill yourself’ part comes in.”

“…That’s so sad…” Chris heard Hannah say so softly he could barely hear him over the crunch of the snow under her feet. He couldn’t help but agree.

“We’re almost back to the Lodge,” Chris heard himself saying, giving the younger girl a small smile. “It’s almost over…”

Through the trees, down the path, Chris could just make out the glow of the porch lights at the front of the Lodge. As a kid, he had always been enchanted by the lights around Christmas time, the way they twinkled and sparkled in the dark, casting everything around them in soft glow, but these boring, everyday lightbulbs gave off the most beautiful light he had ever seen. 

He felt all the stress and tension leave him in a rush. They were almost to safety. They’d get the twins inside, they’d give Josh (and him) some aspirin, and they’ll wait it out until the sun came up. 

No was going to die.

“Beth?! Hannah!” Chris could hear the chorus of voices calling out into the woods though there was no way they could see them yet. “Chris! Guys, this isn’t funny!”

“They’re calling for us,” Beth said, relief clear in her voice. 

“I told them to stay inside,” Chris shook his head but he couldn’t find it in him to be angry. Their friends were worried, how could he be angry about that? Especially after what they went through? They needed to be worried after. “Come on, let’s hurry up and get inside…”

He trailed off, his heart turning to stone in his chest.

“Josh!” That was Sam’s voice, an edge of barely concealed panic in her words. “Josh, come on! Hannah!? Beth?! Please, you guys!”

“W-Why are they calling for Josh…?” Chris could hear the tremble in Hannah’s voice. “H-He was asleep, wasn’t he? H-He was asleep…”

“Fuck!” Chris broke out into a run, dashing down the path toward the Lodge. His heart was pounding in his chest, loud enough for him to hear it in his ears. It couldn’t be… this wasn’t suppose to…

He could hear the twins running beside him and heard the Stranger running just behind him. He heard the man give a whistle and out of the corner of his eye, Chris saw the wolves disappear into the woods.

The Lodge appeared out of the trees in front of them. He could make out the figures of their friends, all gathered around the porch, their eyes searching the tree line. 

“Oh, thank god!” Sam all but ran down the stairs, Ashley and Matt quickly following behind. “You were gone for so long! We were worried and…”

“Where’s Josh?!” Chris asked, skidding to a stop in front of her, ignoring the painful stitch in his side from his mad sprint. “You were calling Josh…”

Sam hesitated, looking over to Hannah and Beth then back at Chris.

“H-He went searching for you! H-He’s not with you?!” Ashley asked, her eyes looked behind Chris, as though Josh was just behind him. Her eyes widened and Chris looked back and met the Stranger’s displeased glare. 

“What happened?” Beth asked, letting go of Hannah to let the other girl wrap her arms around Sam in a tight, scared hug. “Why would Josh go out there?! Why did you let him?!”

“It’s not like he gave us much choice.” Chris looked up to see Mike making his way down the stairs. He winced as he saw the beginnings of a bruise around Mike’s eye. “Who’s the old guy?”

“No, no, what happened to Josh?” Chris forced the subject back. “What happened?”

“W-We did what you said,” Sam spoke up, her arms still tightly around her best friend. “We went inside and tried to wake Josh up. It took a while but we finally got him conscious. W-We tried to tell him what happened. A-About the twins running off and you going after them… he came around pretty quick after that…”

“Then he found out about the prank,” Mike continued, a look of shame briefly flickering over his face before he hid it away behind a look of hurt innocence. “I tried to calm him down, tell him none of us wanted anything bad to happen to the girls, you know? When I tried to stop him from going after you guys, he just clocked me. Pretty good one, too.” 

Mike reached up a hand to gently touch the bruise.

“Fuck!” Chris ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it. “Crap, fuck, crap!”

“Chris,” Beth was looking at him, her eyes hard but scared, “Chris, those things are out there…”

“I know!”

“Things?” Matt repeated, looking over at Beth. “What things? What kind of things?”

“Look, I know it’s hard to believe but… but there are monsters on this mountain, Sam,” Hannah stepped back to look her best friend in the eye. “I saw them! One of them came after me a-and Beth!” She looked over at Mike, as though pleading with him as well to believe her. “C-Chris and… and this man saved us! He has a _flamethrower_ just to kill those things…”

“I… I got to go after him.” Chris felt like his head was spinning, trying to catch up with this turn of events. Going after the twins had been easy. He had known exactly where they would be, where they would be going. He knew he could find them but this? He had no idea. He had no idea where Josh would go, where he would search for them.

“Chris, no!” Hannah reached for him but Chris stepped back away from her. “Those things are out there!”

“ _Josh_ is out there!” Chris shook his head and Hannah pulled her hand back to press it against her mouth, trying to muffle the sob that came out. “I’ll… I’ll go and bring him back.” He looked back at the Stranger. “We’ll go and bring him back. You guys… you…”

“We’ll get everyone inside,” Beth stepped forward, shrugging off Chris’s coat and handing it to him. He quickly pulled it on, thankful for the added warmth. “And actually make sure everyone stays there.” She looked at the Stranger. “W-Where would be the safest place? Until you get back?”

“Inside the house,” the Stranger looked up at the Lodge and Chris could see the wheels turning in his head. “In an interior room with no windows. That movie room you got in there should work nicely.”

“…How’d you know…” Beth trailed off as the Stranger gave her a smirk.

“You’re not here all the time,” the Stranger explained before sobering up. “Get all your stupid friends inside and _keep them in there_. Tell them what you saw if you have to but _don’t_ let them leave. I already got one hero wannabe out here in Specs, I don’t need to add anymore distractions, you got it.”

“Who the fuck is this guy?” Mike asked as Beth forcibly started pushing him toward the stairs while Hannah dragged Sam up.

“I’m the guy that’s going to keep you idiots alive,” the Stranger scoffed. He reached up and pulled the bandana around his neck up over his mouth and nose, the pattern of the fabric giving him the appearance of large, jagged teeth. “Come on, Specs. Let’s find your boy before the Makk does.”


	4. Path of Needles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh wakes up, learns about the prank, and accidentally makes everything worse. Chris and the Stranger work out what to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Josh POV!

Josh opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. He could vaguely remember, before he had passed out, that the light in the kitchen had been subdued and pleasant, mostly provided by the fire in the sitting area only a few yards away. He remembered his back feeling toasty warm thanks to that fire and the marble counter being wonderfully cool against his cheek as sleep closed in on him. 

Now the light seemed so blaring and harsh that Josh had to clench his eyes shut once again.

“Noooo,” he groaned but the word was muffled as he covered his head with his arms. Why was he awake? He didn’t want to be awake… “Ga’way,”

“Josh!” There hands were hands on his back, shaking him, forcing him away from the comfort of sleep. “Josh, you need to wake up!”

“Don’t,” Josh shook his head, keeping his eyes closed out of pure stubbornness. They needed to go away and let him sleep. He nuzzled his cheek against the counter, which wasn’t as cool as it had been before, warmed by his body heat as it was, and tried to ignore the hands on him and the sounds around him.

“God damn it, Josh!” That was definitely Sam’s voice… the hands on his back grabbed onto the green sweater — Chris’s sweater — he was wearing and began to shake him so hard the stool under him started rocking. “Wake up!”

“Woah!” Josh grabbed onto the counter, reluctantly opening his eyes and sitting up or else risk toppling to the floor. His stomach churned from the shaking but Sam seemed to have mercy on him and stopped. His stomach didn’t seem to notice. Josh closed his eyes and forced his stomach to calm down before he started throwing up everywhere. Finally, after a moment, Josh looked up to see not only Sam but the rest of his friends standing around him. They all looked… concerned? He hadn’t had that much to drink! You’d think they’d never seen someone passed out drunk before. “What the hell, Sammy? You trying to make me blow chunks?”

“Hannah and Beth are gone!” Josh tore his eyes away from Sam to Jess. “They ran out into the woods! Chris went after them but now they’re all missing and… and…”

“W-Wait, _what_?” Josh shook his head, holding up his hands to slow down Jess’s stammering explanation. He turned to look across the counter to were Chris had been for most of the night, sitting across from him and matching him drink for drink. The chair was empty. 

He looked back at the people surrounding him, his green eyes flickering from face to face. Sam, Ash, Matt, and Emily with Jess and Mike were on his other side… his sisters and best friend weren’t there. Josh tried to force down the surge of sudden panic that brought up. Them not being here… it didn’t mean anything, it could just be their idea of a joke.

It was a joke, right?

“Y-Yeah, nice try…” Josh huffed out a small laugh, trying to smile. 

No one else smiled. Josh scanned their faces again before settling on Jess’s. Jess could never keep a straight face when it came to jokes that required her to look serious. If you stared at her long enough, her mask would crack and she would dissolve into a fit of giggles. 

Jess wasn’t giggling. As Josh looked at her, studied her, he could see how red her eyes were, how smeared her make up had become. There were tears starting to gather in her eyes even now. That wasn’t reassuring.

“Josh, we’re serious,” Sam said, forcing him to look back at her. Sam was better at keeping a straight face but Sam wouldn’t… Sam didn’t go in for the mean jokes and if this was a joke, it was nothing less than cruel. They all knew how close Josh was to his sisters, to Chris. How many times had they accused him of being a worrywart when it came to those three?

“Josh, here,” Ashley appeared beside him, holding out a glass of water toward him. “Drink this…”

When Josh didn’t reach out to take the glass, Sam took it from the other girl and forced it into Josh’s hands. He stared down into the cup, watching as the water rippled as his hands shook. When had he started shaking?

This wasn’t… this wasn’t right. This wasn’t how things went, not out here. They came out here to have a good time, to not have to worry about school or work or whatever the fuck it is that always stresses everyone out. He and his sisters got to spend time together, he could get Chris to lighten up, all their friends could just let loose and…

And no one got hurt.

_Hannah and Beth are gone… Chris went after them…_

“I-I don’t understand,” Josh said, forcing the words out as clearly as he could, not trusting them not to slur with the alcohol still in his system. “What do you mean… I don’t understand what you’re saying…”

“Drink the water, Josh.” Josh looked up to see Sam, giving him one _those_ smiles, the kind she always gave when things weren’t going right but she wanted to pretend everything was fine. He hated that smile, it never worked, it just meant things were fucking bad. “It’ll help clear your head…”

Josh thought his head was well on its way to being clear without the fucking water. It started clearing the second Sam started shaking him out of his comfortable, safe stupor. It was clearing when they started telling him about his sisters and best friend going missing.

It was clear enough for him to know that everything had gone to hell in a fucking handbasket.

“No,” Josh shook his head, setting the glass down on the counter with enough force that most of the water sloshed out. “No, what I need is to know what the hell happened! W-What do you mean my sisters ran out into the woods?! T-That Chris went after them?! Why the hell would they do that?!”

“It… it was just a joke!” Josh turned his eyes back to Jess, the tears that had been gathering in her eyes now slipping down her face, smearing her make up further. “It was just a joke!”

Josh looked from Jess to the rest of his friends. None of them could meet his questioning gaze and all of them had a hint of guilt and shame on their faces… except for Sam who just looked sad and worried. Josh’s stomach turned, a wave of nausea washing over him that had nothing to do with the whiskey he had overindulged in earlier. It felt like his heart had stopped beating in his chest and his blood had been replaced with the snow from outside.

This… this couldn’t be real. He was having some twisted, fucked up dream _again_. Any moment now, his alarm clock would go off and he’ll wake up in his bed upstairs. Everything would be fine and he’ll even get up and make breakfast for everyone since Chris had done it that morning.

Except he wasn’t waking up and this was… this was real. It was fucking real.

“What did you do?” He asked, his voice deceptively calm, even to his own ears.

“It was… was just a stupid prank.” It was Mike that spoke up. The taller boy took a step forward to talk to Josh face to face. “It was just a stupid, bad joke and Hannah overreacted…”

“What,” Josh repeated slowly, “did you do?”

“We… we left a note for Hannah,” Mike sighed, accepting there was no use in hiding it from Josh, the older boy would find out eventually, “told her to meet me in the guest room because I… because I liked her… the way she likes me…”

Hannah’s crush on Mike wasn’t exactly a secret. Everyone knew or, at least, suspected it, even if Hannah thought differently. Hannah’s heart was constantly on her sleeve, open to anyone who would take the time to look. Naive, romantic Hannah with her bad taste in crushes, Josh could only imagine how Hannah must have felt. To think someone loved actually loved you back only to find it was just a joke… This would have hurt her so much. 

“Why would you…” Josh stopped and took a slow, deep breath, trying to stop the anger growing in his chest from bursting out. It wasn’t working. “Why would you _do_ that? How the hell is that _funny_? Y-You know she had a-a crush on you, Mike! What the fuck?!”

“That… that’s not the worse part…” Matt stepped forward and held out his phone. Josh could see the screen was paused on a video. Josh felt his heart down. A video wasn’t good… a video meant they wanted to watch this prank over and over again. They really thought this would be funny… that this was okay.

“You _recorded it_?” Josh all but snatched the phone out of Matt’s hand, trying to ignore the way his hands trembled. He didn’t know if he was more angry or disgusted. Hannah was suppose to be their friend! Yeah, they played stupid jokes on each other all the time but this was just… you didn’t do this to people you care about. Maybe not even to people you don’t care about.

No one said anything as Josh started the video. The video only took a few moments to watch but Josh felt like it lasted forever. The image of his sweet, trusting sister looking so happy and hopeful one moment only to have everything crash down around her within seconds. He watched her expression as the betrayal set in, watched as the realization set in. He watched as she ran out the door and the video abruptly ended.

“S-She ran outside,” Matt said, taking back his phone as Josh wordlessly handed it back. “Beth heard her and ran out after her. Chris showed up a few minutes later and went after them. He told us all the stay inside and to try and wake you up…”

“Josh, you gotta believe us,” Jess stepped forward, her arms wrapped around herself as though she was trying to make herself as small as possible. “We _never_ thought it would go down like that. I-I didn’t know she w-would react like that…”

“Stop,” Josh held up a hand, forcing Jess to stop talking. He didn’t want to hear them try and justify what they had done. Hannah might not have reacted the way they had expected, even Josh was shocked at how willing she was to get naked for a jerk like Mike, but that didn’t change anything. They should have stopped the prank as soon as they realized how far Hannah was willing to go… should have stopped her from embarrassing herself. They shouldn’t have done this in the first place.

“I… I’m going after them.” Josh shouldered his way past Mike, stumbling slightly as he actually tried to walk, before quickly catching himself. He didn’t have the luxury of being drunk or tipsy right now. His sisters and his best friend needed him.

He made his way over to the table in the main living room and started looking through the drawers. There was a flashlight here somewhere, he remembered changing the batteries for it the first night back.

“Josh, you can’t go out there!” Ashley protested, appearing at his side as he searched through a side table. “There’s a snowstorm! H-How is you getting lost o-or freezing to death going to help anyone?!”

“They shouldn’t be out there to begin with,” Josh stated coldly. His eyes caught the bright yellow handle of the flashlight and he snatched it up before closing the drawer with a slam. Ashley winced at the loud bang.

“Look, man,” Mike stepped in front of him as Josh turned toward the front door of the Lodge. “We hate that this happened - you got to believe that - but you getting yourself killed isn’t going to help anyone…”

“Mike, get out of my way,” Josh said, the words coming out as an order. His grip on the flashlight tightened.

“I can’t let you go out here, Josh,” Mike shook his head, reaching out his hands to grip Josh’s upper arms, forcing him to stay still. “There’s too many people out there now! What if you don’t find them? O-Or you get lost too? What if they came back and find you gone? You think Hannah and Beth would want that?”

“Let go of me, Mike,” Josh growled out the words, barely keeping his anger in check. His sisters were out there! They were out there because of Mike and everyone else in this damn lodge. Mike had no right… he had no right to tell him to calm down, to tell him what his sisters would want. “I’m going to find my sisters and my best friend and if you try and stop me, I swear to God…”

“Josh, I’m not letting you -”

Josh wasn’t a stranger to fistfights, aggression being a symptom of his condition, but this was different. This wasn’t uncalled for, this wasn’t lashing out. This was the guy that had humiliated his baby sister, this was the guy who had her fleeing her own home because she couldn’t stand to be near afterwards… Mike might have meant for this to happen but he was far from innocent… and now he was trying to stop Josh from fixing it… from saving his sisters and his… and Chris.

He swung and felt his fist connect with the side of Mike’s face, not aiming to cause any real damage, just wanting Mike to let go of him. His hand screamed in pain but he ignored it. Mike flailed backwards, taken by surprise by the punch. Before anyone could try and stop him again, Josh rushed out the door and into the snowy outside.

After the warmth of the Lodge, the cold air hit Josh like a slap to the face but he couldn’t turn back now. The punch to the face might have dissuaded Mike from stopping him but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of them, especially not Sam. If he went back inside, even for just a coat, he suspected the small girl would pounce on him and pin him down if it meant keeping him inside.

Josh zipped up the green sweater he had stolen from Chris and started out toward the woods. From the way Sam had talked, they couldn’t have been gone long, there should be some hint as to which way they had gone. Tracks weren’t going to work. Everyone had been outside that day and the snow was covered in their tracks and with the new snow falling heavily, Josh couldn’t tell what was old and what was new.

“Should’ve joined the scouts,” Josh muttered, clicking on the flashlight and pointing it out into the trees, searching for some sign as to where to go. There was nothing. Not even a suspiciously broken twig or branch.

“Okay…” Josh took a deep breath as his eyes scanned the tree line. “Okay… They know this mountain as well as I do, they wouldn’t get lost. If they’re not here by now then… then they went somewhere else.” Josh nodded to himself, working out what he hoped was the most likely scenario. He knew his sisters and Chris, he just hoped he knew them well enough. “There’s… there’s the cable car station, the fire tower and… and the guest cabin. There’s no reason for them to go to the fire tower or the station…”

Josh turned and pointed the flashlight toward the trail that would lead to the guest cabin. There weren’t any signs that anyone had passed by that way but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t end up there. The twins could find their way to the trails from the woods, they could get to the cabin and… and they would bring Chris with them. They just wouldn’t want to face their so-called friends after what they… after what they had done.

“You better be up there,” Josh muttered, starting toward the path that would take him to the secluded guest cabin.

* * *

Chris had never thought of Blackwood Pines as being a particularly ominous place. Before, the towering trees and complete isolation had just been, at worse, foreboding and awe inspiring at best. It had never felt evil before tonight, just immense and eternal.

Now, with the trees looming around him like a threat, knowing it hid a very real danger in the pristine forest… there was no way Chris could ever feel safe up here ever again.

Just… just fuck nature.

The snow under his feet creaked as he shifted from foot to foot, watching the Stranger in unease as the man knelt down in the snow. The Stranger’s one remaining eye scanned the ground around them, studying the scattered footprints. Chris wasn’t sure what he hoped to see - there were so many tracks around that the snow was more of an icy sludge now. It was impossible for Chris to even separate each print and he was sure if the Stranger could either.

“Well?” Chris asked after a moment, rolling the can of cooking spray in his in hands nervously. It felt like it was still half full. “Anything?”

“Hmph.” The Stranger stood though his gaze remained on the tracks around them.

“Look, Josh couldn’t have gotten far…”

“Wouldn’t have needed to,” the Stranger muttered. 

“…But he’s only going to get further away if we stay here,” Chris finished, choosing not to acknowledge the Stranger’s implication. “So if you can actually make sense of this,” Chris gestured at the icy sludge around them, “then now would be a good time to share!”

“Your boy went up the mountain, toward the overlook or that cabin they’ve got up there.” The Stranger nodded toward the side of the Lodge. Chris looked but while the icy sludge was less sludgy and trampled than the rest of the snow around the Lodge, it didn’t look all that different to him.

“…Then why are we still here?” Chris asked, deciding to trust the mountain man that killed monsters with a flamethrower for a living. 

“Because the Makkapitew usually doesn’t wander that far up the mountain,” the Stranger said, looking toward the path that lead to the cable car station.

Chris frowned. “…And the miners?”

“Aren’t usually out when the Makkapitew is.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not seeing the problem here then,” Chris shook his head, disbelief coloring his words as he turned to look toward the path that would lead up the mountain to the Washington’s guest cabin. That was where Josh was heading, that’s where he would find him. Every cell in Chris’s body wanted to go running up that path and catch up to the darker man before he got too far away. Before something horrible could happen to him. “I mean… if we know where he is - where he’s going - why are we…?”

“The Makk doesn’t go up toward the fire tower either,” the Stranger interrupted, turning to look back at Chris. “Doesn’t usually go after groups of people either, preferring to snag them one at a time. He went after all three of you at once.”

“W-What are you saying?” There was a very clear implication in the older man’s words and Chris felt the icy chill of dread sweep over him, making his body feel numb. “I-It’s _learning_ or some shit?”

“It’s not doing what it usually does,” the Stranger clarified. “Any other time, we’d be going up to that cabin for your friend…”

“But not now,” Chris finished for him. “Because you don’t know what the wendigo is going to do?”

“Got it first try, Specs.” The Stranger didn’t sound amused. “It’s not acting the way it usually does and I don’t like it. It was hard enough tracking the bastard down when it was set in its ways. It’s changing and I don’t know why and I don’t know what it means.”

“If there’s even a chance that it could go after Josh, we can’t just stay here!” Chris looked between the Stranger and the trail that could lead him to Josh. “I-If the wendigo, the Makkapitew, is acting different then all the more reason we go after Josh! A-and if the Makkapitew is acting differently then whose to say the miners won’t be? W-What if they’re coming out of the mines and the sanatorium? Josh has no idea what’s out there!”

“And what if the Makkapitew decides it’s tired of the cold and the snow? What if it decides this nice, big Lodge of your friends looks mighty appealing? And full of tasty little brats to snack on?” The Stranger gripped the nozzle of his flamethower harder. 

Chris stopped and stared at the Stranger. In his mind, he could see the wendigo that used to be Hannah, hanging from the chandelier in the main room of the Lodge. He could see the wendigo miners scurrying through the old hotel and into the basement of the Lodge, chasing after his few surviving friends.

Obviously, something had changed on the mountain and tonight was the start of it. Was this another thing the mountain was warning him about? That the wendigo curse was about to get a whole lot worse?

“But… but how can they just… just change overnight?” Chris shook his head, furrowing his brow as he tried to think. “Is… is it something to do with the mountain? With the wendigos?” Chris felt a nearly hysterical laugh escape from his throat. “Is the curse on a time limit?”

“I told you I don’t know,” the Stranger snapped back at him. “Now shut up and listen to me. You got your little blowtorch, yeah? Good. I might not know what the Makk is up to but the last we saw of him, he was down here. For your boy’s sake, you better hope he is still down here. That can and lighter you got might fend off the Makkapitew but not for long and it definitely isn’t enough to kill it, but those miners up there? If they are out, that should be more than enough to scare them off, might even kill one of them if it’s stupid.”

“W-Wait, you want me to go after Josh by myself?” Chris asked, staring back at the older man, waiting for the insulting laugh at his expense. It didn’t come. “W-What are you going to be doing?”

The older man whistled and the brush to the right of them rustled and parted as the two wolves stepped out of their hiding places to join their master. 

“I’m going to do what I always do,” the Stranger said with a small smirk. “I’m going to track down the Makkapitew. If it’s down this way, I’ll find it.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Well then,” the Stranger gave Chris a look over, “I sure hope your friend is worth it.”

“He is,” Chris found himself saying before he could even think of how to answer. Of course Josh was worth it, even if the older teen often doubted it. He was the closest friend Chris had ever had, he couldn’t even imagine life without him. 

If any part of him had ever doubted that, the dream took care of that. He remembered the look on Dream Josh’s face as he was tied up, as he was forced outside and away, he could see Dream Josh’s lucidity leaving him as one of his worse fears - being abandoned and alone - started coming true. He had gone back for Josh in that dream, in spite of everything, and he would go after Josh now.

He wasn’t going to lose Josh, he couldn’t, not again and definitely not for real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title (and next chapter's title) is from an older version of the Little Red Riding Hood story.


	5. Path of Pins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh goes searching for his sisters and Chris. Chris goes searching for Josh. The Makkapitew is searching for them both.

When he was younger, Josh was sure there were monsters up on the mountain.

The mountain had been so completely different from Los Angeles. There were no tall buildings or even other people. Instead, there were trees and animals, two things Josh had little experience with. There were sounds he didn’t know and couldn’t explain. There were creatures that moved in the trees and grass, appearing and disappearing before he could see what they were. As much as his parents assured him that it was just harmless animals, like bunnies and birds, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining something much worse.

When he was seven, he had a nightmare so vivid and realistic he had trouble believing it had just been a dream. Even now, he could remember everything about that night. He remembered being warm in his bed with the soft Star Wars sheets. He remembered waking up and reaching for the glass of water on his bedside table. He remembered hearing an awful screeching and almost dropping the plastic cup in terror. 

He remembered ducking under his blankets and pulling them up until only his eyes remained uncovered. He remembered staring at the window, convinced something was going to appear.

And something did.

The shadow of a round, bald head appeared, peeking up over the sill of his window. Josh hadn’t been able to see any features of the monster’s face but he knew it had been looking into his room, searching for him. He could see it turning its head, looking at every corner of his room until it finally seemed to stop on his bed. Josh, too scared to move, had stared at it as it stared at him. He watched as the monster scurried around his window, its head never leaving the window, even as it now hung upside down behind the glass.

Josh had seen its long, inhuman arms and legs with the long, sharp claws at the end of them. 

It knew he was in there, he knew that it knew and Josh could only stared back at it, waiting for it to burst through the glass and rip him apart.

He stared at that window watching it until the monster scurried away. He heard its clawed fingers making scratching noises as it scaled the Lodge walls. He stared at that window long after the noises went away. He stared until he could see the sky start to lighten as dawn approached.

The dream had been so _vivid_ at the time, had seemed so _real_. 

Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could see the spider-like shadow creeping along his bedroom floor, reaching out for him. He could still feel the absolute terror that had paralyzed him.

It may have just been the product of a child’s over-active imagination but it was a nightmare Josh had never forgotten. Until tonight, he had always been careful to never go out into the woods alone, especially not at night. It wasn’t hard to do once his sisters were old enough to start venturing out on their own. The woods were less threatening with the sounds of Hannah and Beth’s laughter drowning out the usual silence. When they started inviting friends over, it was even better. With Sam's enthusiasm for the great outdoors and Chris's string of complaints about how unnatural nature was, the thought of monsters in the night didn't belong. 

It had been a foolish fear as a child but now it was a fear pushed to the back of his mind. There was no danger here, only friends and family. It was safe here.

It _had_ been safe here.

Now, shivering in the cold, Josh wasn't so sure anymore. He had left the Lodge so fast, he hadn’t stopped to think of anything else but the twins and Chris. In that panic, there had been no place for abstract fears, not when the real fear of death loomed over people he loved. Now, in the dark and silence of the mountain, that fear reared its ugly head once more. Now, that fear didn’t seem quite so abstract. 

Now, monsters in the dark didn’t seem like such a foolish fear at all.

“It’s just a fifteen minute walk.” Josh’s breath came out in a puff of white. The words echoed off the frozen trees and back to him. They didn’t sound as reassuring as he hoped they would. “There’s nothing out here… nothing but squirrels and deer. Nothing scary about that.”

There were suppose to be bears and wolves up on the mountain as well but Josh had never actually seen or heard them. Hannah insisted she heard howling once one night a few years ago but no one else had heard it. Josh didn’t know if there were wolves on the mountain but he didn’t want tonight to be the night to find out.

“Please don’t let Hannah try and pet a wolf,” Josh muttered under his breath, his free arm wrapped around his midsection for warmth. “Or a bear…”

He knew Hannah wasn’t reckless enough to approach a wild animal, despite her love of them, but the sound of a human voice, even his own, was comforting. The forest was so quiet, almost silent. He wasn't sure if the snow was acting like some kind of soundproofing or if all the animals were taking shelter from the storm but, whatever it was, it was unnerving. He liked there for be noise! Cars zipping by in the street below, the chatter of TVs people have left on, music playing from someone’s phone - the sounds of human life.

Chris was always good for that. Chris hated the quiet as much as Josh did and always found a way to fill it. He’d talk nonstop about ideas for apps he would like to make, about the latest game about to come out, about how bullshit the ending to a movie or show was. He could always keep Josh’s attention, even when his mind wanted to wander away…

Josh didn’t know what he would do if something ever happened to Chris. It was true for all his friends and family, to some degree, but Chris was different. Hannah, Beth, Mom and Dad were family but Chris… he was something just as important, just as deeply rooted. They have been friends for so long, they knew each other completely. It was like they belonged together. How could you have Chris without Josh? Or Josh without Chris? 

When he had first gotten sick, Chris had been there for him. Josh had been so scared that Chris wouldn’t want to deal with his baggage, that he would want to cut his losses and find someone else to hangout with. Someone who didn’t get bummed out for no reason and didn’t have panic attacks out of nowhere. Someone who didn't get so fucking stressed out that they started hallucinating. Someone who didn’t see monsters in their windows at night.

But Chris didn’t bail on him. Instead, he made sure Josh remembered to take his meds and stayed with him when they stopped working. He looked up ways to help him through a panic attack and hallucinations. He kept his phone on and charged up, ready to answer every one of Josh’s calls even if it was three in the fucking morning. 

He knew when Josh was having a bad time and was always ready with crappy video games and a pizza he had picked up on the way over. 

In return, Josh tried his best to make Chris’s life as easy as possible. He deserved parties and popularity and friends. He deserved a nice girl who wasn’t fucked in the head. It was the least he could do though Josh doubted it was anywhere near enough. Chris deserved so much more than what Josh could give him.

“It’s going to be hell getting Chris to come back up here after this,” Josh panted, squinting his eyes to see through the falling snow. The light from the bright LED flashlight was glaring off the ice and the snow, making it hard to see. He had laughed when his mother had insisted on installing the path lights up to the cabin but now they were the only thing guiding him. He’ll have to buy her an apology present when they got home. “He hates being outside already… no need to add shit like this — _Oh, fuck!_ ”

Josh ducked his head down as a branch came crashing down out the foliage above him. It landed on the path in front of him with an almost musical clatter as the ice that had engulfed the pine wood shattered.

“Jesus, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck!” Josh stared at the large, fallen branch as his heart tried to beat out of his chest. The branch gleamed with ice. If he had been a few steps further, he’d have been under it. 

“Maybe Chris has the right idea, staying inside all the time,” Josh tried to laugh but it came out as more of a huff. He pointed the flashlight up into the branches over him but all he could see were icy branches and darkness. The wind ruffled the branches, making chips of ice and snow sprinkle down. “Nothing up there…” Josh muttered then frowned. “Of course there’s nothing fucking up there. Jesus fucking Christ.”

The snow started to get deeper as the trees surrounding the trail opened up to the small overlook that marked the halfway point between the Lodge and the cabin.

“I hope they got a fire going up there,” Josh muttered as he trudged through the snow to the set of stationary binoculars on the overlook. “There’s snow in my boots…”

He could see it so clearly in his mind’s eye… Hannah would be curled up on the small sofa, a blanket over her shoulders, placed there by Chris or Beth. Beth would have started a fire in the small, wood burning stove and complaining that there were cans of soup at the cabin but only two bowls. Chris would be trying to cheer Hannah up, saying he’d fight Mike if she wanted him too, even if he got his ass handed to him, he’d do it. Josh would get there and Beth would fuss at him for being stupid but Hannah would wrap him up in a tight hug… Chris call him a drama queen and roll his eyes but there would be no real heat behind the words, just a smile.

And they would be up there, Josh was sure of it. Anything else wasn’t an option. Because if they weren’t up there then that would mean… it would mean…

“They’re up there,” Josh shook his head, banishing any thought that said otherwise. He reached for the binoculars. If he remembered right, he should be able to see the cabin from here, if the snow allowed.

Something moved in the woods, just off to his left. Josh jumped and swung around, pointing the flashlight toward the woods, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. All he saw was bright white snow in the bright white beam of the LEDs.

Nothing moved.

“Guys?” Josh called, narrowing his eyes to see through the glare of the flashlight. “Chris…?”

He heard a screech that had haunted his nightmares since he was a child. He stumbled back, his back hitting the railing of the overlook as the monster from his childhood landed in the snow in front of him.

 

* * *

 

Running in the snow would have been difficult for an athletic person. For Chris, it was next to impossible. The snow tonight was much deeper than it had been in his dream of the future. Then again, there wasn’t a full out snowstorm a year from now.

“Come on, Christopher,” Chris panted to himself, forcing his legs to keep moving. He couldn’t run in this snow but he was managing something that might count as a brisk jog. It wasn’t nearly as fast as he wanted to go but it was all his weak, junk food-fueled body would allow. “You got this… he can’t be that far…”

He should never have told Sam to try and wake Josh up. What did he think was going to happen once Josh knew they were gone? Just sit there and wait for them?! When had Josh _ever_ taken anything sitting down?! Chris knew him better that that! He knew him better than anyone.

“I’m such a fucking idiot,” Chris muttered, catching himself when he slipped in the snow. “I should have known this would happen…”

Was this some kind of sick trade off? He got to save the twins and everyone else but, in return, he had to lose Josh? What kind of fucked up trade was that?! He couldn’t imagine life without Josh. Josh practically _was_ his life! He was his best friend, he was his… his something.

He couldn’t lose him, not like this. He refused to.

“Fuck you, I’m not giving him up,” Chris muttered, unsure of just who he was talking to. The mountain? Fate? Himself? It didn’t matter, it was true regardless. 

It wasn’t hard to find Josh’s tracks once he left the immediate area around the Lodge. His footprints were clear in the snow and deep enough that they weren't filled with the falling snow just yet. He could only hope that the old guy was right and Josh was heading up to the cabin and not somewhere else up on this mountain.

Josh knew this mountain so well, all of the Washington family did. If Josh wanted to go somewhere on the mountain, he would have no trouble finding it. Though why Josh would have run this way instead of after them, Chris didn’t know but he was sure it would have made sense to Josh, if no one else. 

At least it meant Josh hadn’t run straight into the jaws of the Makkapitew along with the rest of them. That meant there was a possibility that Josh was safe, that he made it to that cabin alright... even if that cabin wouldn’t be anywhere near safe a year from now. He remembered what had happened to Jess in the dream, he didn’t want to see it happen again, not to Josh. 

The forest was eerily quiet. There were no animals out or, if there was, they were doing this best to be as silent as possible. Like they were hiding.

“Just get to Josh,” Chris panted, swallowing to try and relieve the painful dryness forming in his throat. He tightened his grip on the spray can, trying not to think of how much lighter it felt now. “Get to Josh, get back to the cabin, get the hell out of dodge.”

Chris slid to a stop as a screech he had hoped to never hear again echoed through the forest. It was close too.

“ _Fuck!_ Josh!”

Chris ignored the burning in his legs and chest and started running down the path, not caring as he tripped and slid on the snow and ice. His foot caught on a large, fallen branch and he only just managed to stop himself from landing face first in the snow. He scrambled back to his feet, barely taking the time to make sure he hadn’t dropped the spray can or the lighter in his tumble.

The trail opened up to the overlook and he felt his blood run cold.

Josh was standing by the railing of the overlook, a look of terror on his face. He was staring over toward the forest to his left, the flashlight in his hand trembling. Chris followed his gaze and, at first, saw only trees. Then he saw the rustled up snow at the edge of the forest where something had stood not too long ago.

“C-Chris…” Chris turned back to look at Josh, noticing how pale the other man had gone. “I-I think I’m seeing things… again.”

Part of Chris’s heart broke at how small and unsure Josh’s voice sounded but the rest of him knew better.

“N-Not this time, Josh,” Chris shook his head, hurrying over to him. He stood in front of Josh, meeting the other boy’s eyes. The green eyes took a few seconds but they focused on him. That was good. The meds were holding up, despite the binge drinking from earlier and the stress now. “Josh, where did it go? Did you see?”

Josh frowned, his eyes darting from Chris to the woods and back. 

“I… I don’t understand… where’s the girls, Chris?” Josh reached a hand forward until he was touching Chris’s chest, making sure he was real. Some of the worry eased off of Josh’s face. “Where are my sisters…?”

“They’re back at the Lodge,” Chris took Josh’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Josh, we need to go back to the Lodge and off this mountain… Josh?”

Josh wasn’t looking at him anymore.

Already knowing what he would see, Chris turned his head to look back the forest. 

Crouched on the ground a few yards away was the Makkapitew, its soulless white eyes trained on them. The thin, gnawed off lips pulled back further, baring its awful teeth. It knew they were there.

“Don’t move,” Chris said, his voice soft but loud enough for Josh to hear. “Don’t move…”

The Makkapitew screeched and Josh whimpered behind him. He saw Josh flinch out of the corner of his eye, dropping the flashlight and raised his hands up to grip at his hair as he squeezed his eyes shut. It was something Chris had seen him do before, when a bad hallucination was starting. 

_This isn’t going to work_ , Chris realized as the icy grip of fear crept over him. _It knows where we are… Josh is already starting to lose it… shit…_

The Makkapitew leapt forward a few feet, his eyes focused on Josh. Chris could hear Josh starting to mutter, telling himself it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t helping and if he didn’t do something soon…

“Stay behind me, Josh,” Chris instructed. He flicked Josh’s zippo lighter open and turned as fast as he could, raising both the lighter and the can. The burst of flame shot out, lighting up the dark clearing. The Makkapitew shrieked, the sound far sharper and blood chilling than even before.

They couldn’t out run this thing but if he could scare it off, like he had done with Hannah and Beth, then maybe…

The Makkapitew jumped to the side, away from the flame but instead of retreating, it leapt again.

Time seemed to slow as Chris watched the thin frame launch itself toward him, its long, sharp claws raised up to swipe at him. He twisted to try and turn the flame back at the creature but he never made it.

He heard Josh scream behind him and felt hands grab at his torn jacket, pulling him hard to the side and back.

Chris felt a cold wind hit his face as the wendigo’s swipe passed by his face, only the tips of the claws grazing his cheek. The hard, thin body of the wendigo collided into him, its momentum too great for it to stop. Chris felt all the air leave his lungs all at once. He fell backward into Josh who stumbled back with a small cry of alarm and pain. For a terrifying moment, the sound of creaking wood filled the air as the weight of three bodies pressed against the old wood railing of the overlook.

“Chris!” Josh screamed in his ear just seconds before the wood splintered and gave way behind them, spilling them out into thin air and then onto the steep, rocky incline below.

The world twisted and spun around him with a dizzying speed that stopped as abruptly as it began. The fall was only ten feet but the slide down the mountain side was quite a bit more. Hard rocks and sharp twigs scratched and snagged at him as he rolled past them. What little oxygen left in Chris’s lungs was once again forced out as his battered body tumbled down the steep mountain side.

His descent stopped as he crashed into a tree at the foot of the cliff. His head throbbed and a searing pain was shooting through his arm. His glasses, miraculously still on his face, were cracked and half covered with snow.

Somehow, he was still alive.

“Josh?” Chris said, gritting his teeth against the pain as he tried to sit up. There was the sound of crunching snow and Josh’s face loomed up over him. His best friend’s face was tight with pain. There was a thick stream of blood running down the side of Josh’s face, coming from a gash on his forehead but he was alive. 

“I’m here,” Josh said, kneeling down beside Chris, hissing softly as he moved. “Are you alright? You’re bleeding…”

“I’m bleeding?” Chris huffed out a small laugh, looking at the cut on Josh’s forehead. “I suppose that’s just ketchup then?”

Josh reached up and touched the blood on his face, as though he were just realizing it was there. He didn’t laugh or even smile at the joke. He looked down at Chris, an almost hunted look in his green eyes.

“Chris, w-what was…” He stopped to take a deep breath and Chris knew he was trying to sort out what had just happened. This was the kind of shit Josh would have nightmares about. It was the kind of shit he would see when his condition got out of control. And Chris was just telling him it was actually real. “I-If this is some kind o-of prank…”

“God, no!” Chris shook his head, his heart skipping a beat at the words. “Josh, I swear, this isn’t a prank or a joke. We need to get out of here, back to the others and… shit!”

If Chris hadn’t known what was really up on this mountain, he wouldn’t have paid the sound of breaking twigs or rustling leaves any mind. He would have continued on oblivious of the danger quickly approaching. 

He knew better now.

Chris grabbed Josh by the shoulders and pushed him back onto the snow, covering his body with his own. Josh yelped but Chris quickly clapped his hand over the other man’s mouth.

“Quiet,” Chris hissed into Josh’s ear, keeping his head down but close to Josh’s. “Don’t move, don’t make a sound. Whatever you do…”

He cut himself off as he heard the soft ‘whump’ and the crunch of snow as the Makkapitew landed in a snow drift, just a few yards away from them. He could see the monster out of the corner of his eye. It was blurry because he wasn’t looking through the broken glass of his glasses but there was no mistaking those long limbs and inhuman stance.

He felt Josh freeze under him, going stiff with fright. Hot bursts of air hit Chris’s hand as Josh started to panic but, thankfully, he didn’t move further.

Chris watched as the wendigo turned its head back and forth, obviously searching for them. He could hear it sniff at the air and Chris became all that more aware of the hot blood under his hand. The wendigo took a few steps closer, its long strides quickly closing the distance between them.

Chris felt something hot hit his hand, something that wasn’t in the right place to be Josh’s blood. He risked a glance over at Josh’s face. The other teenager’s eyes were wide and focused on the Makkapitew — tears were leaking out of the corner of his eyes, hitting Chris’s hand. 

He hoped it wasn’t enough movement to alert the wendigo that was desperately searching for them.

Chris felt more than saw the Makkapitew loom over them, just a foot or two away. It twisted its head back and forth and turned in a tight circle, its milky white eyes flickering for any sign of movement. It opened its mouth and gave a long, loud screech that could only be of frustration. It leapt up into the tree just over them. Chris watched as it disappeared into the branches and as it leapt back up to the overlook overhead.

For a few moments, neither boy moved, too terrified of the creature returning to finish the job. It didn’t return.

Slowly, Chris removed his hand from Josh’s mouth.

“Oh, fuck…” Josh sobbed, finally closing his eyes and turning to press his forehead against Chris’s. “Oh, fuck… fuck… fuck…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long for this chapter to come out. I had a bad case of writer's block all of December: I just wasn't liking anything that I wrote! I finally got into the groove of the fic again but there are still parts that fill iffy to me.
> 
> That said: I finally got to the scene that made me want to write this fic ever since I got the prompt! Yay! (hint: It's the last scene. ;) )

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to wait until the entire fic was finished before I started posting but it was taking longer than I thought and then guilt happened. Everything is outlined though and hopefully I won't take too long between chapters!
> 
> Tumblr: http://kariki.tumblr.com/


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